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Two eastern Pennsylvania kennel operators shot and killed 80 of their dogs, rather than comply with orders to have their animals examined by veterinarians, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

And because of a loophole in state law, neither will be punished for the mass extermination.

Elmer Zimmerman, of Kutztown, shot 70 dogs after a July 24 inspection; his brother Ammon Zimmerman, who operates a kennel next door, shot 10 dogs, officials of the state Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement said.

Wardens had ordered 39 dogs checked for flea and fly bites. They also issued citations for extreme heat, insufficient bedding and floors dogs’ feet could fall through.

Elmer Zimmerman told The Philadelphia Inquirer he feared the state was trying to close his kennel: “They were old, and we were hearing that they don’t want kennels anymore,” he said. “The best thing to do was get rid of them.”

Ammon Zimmerman told a reporter the decision to destroy the dogs was “none of your business.”

Pennsylvania law allows owners to put dogs down by shooting them.

A bill in the state legislature, backed by Gov. Ed Rendell, would allow only veterinarians to euthanize dogs in commercial kennels.

“It’s horrible, but it’s legal,” Jessie Smith, special deputy secretary of the dog-law bureau, said of the shootings. “That someone would shoot 70 dogs rather than spend money to do a vet check is extremely problematic.”

Both men surrendered their kennel licenses. Elmer Zimmerman pleaded guilty to four charges of violating the dog law, Smith said.

A sheriff’s deputy in south Texas caught a mysterious creature on videotape over the weekend, and the footage is heating up the chupacabra debate once again.

Is it a dog? A coyote? Or the legendary bloodsucking beast that has been rumored to have attacked livestock and pets in the southwest since the 1990s?

“You need to record something like this because it’s not everyday you find something that looks like this, running around out in the middle of the county,” said Cpl. Brandon Riedel, who pursued the animal in his car but later lost him.

The short-legged, hairless animal had a long snout that looked like a coyote, Riedel said. But he admitted he wasn’t convinced.

“You know, it’s just kind of one of those things to hear about and talk about, but to actually see something on video that may actually be a live one, that’s pretty amazing,” DeWitt County Sheriff Jode Zavesky said.

Friday’s sighting is just the latest “sighting” of the mythical animal. Last year, a rancher found a dead animal near the town of Cuero that was thought by some to be a chupacabra. Biologists at Texas State University-San Marcos tested DNA taken from the remains of the animal and found it to be a coyote.

“It’s like every good urban legend,” Texas filmmaker Erik McCowan said. “Maybe it’s better to just think it is the chupacabra.”

A German shepherd named Cash spent six weeks near her dead master’s body after the man apparently killed himself in a remote area, Colorado authorities said. 

The 3-year-old female dog was found Sunday in the 200,000-acre Pawnee National Grassland, not far from the body of Jake Baysinger, 25, who it is believed shot himself, The Greeley Tribune reported Tuesday.

He had been reported missing on June 28, but Weld County Sheriff deputies had been unable to find the man or his pickup, according to a UPI version of the story.

A rancher found the man’s body after first seeing the dog, which apparently survived by eating mice and rabbits, the newspaper said. The dog was taken to the Humane Society of Weld County, where she was later picked up by Baysinger’s wife.